- Microscope down.
We are at the electron microscope lab
at University of Utah.
We figured if we're gonna cut open a microscope,
we need to meet with some people that actually
understand a microscope and know how it works.
David, Dan.
- Hi, David Belnap, oh nice.
- This is our microscope that we brought.
Do we need to be wearing this stuff?
- Probably not for what we're gonna do today.
- I'm gonna keep the lab coat on because I feel cool in it
and I feel smarter.
When it comes to things like childhood death
and different diseases,
you may look at it from a global perspective
and think that man that's really depressing and sad,
but in reality things have actually improved a lot.
In fact, childhood deaths have been cut in half
over the last 15 years.
And so, a lot of that has to do with different things
that are done in labs just like this,
trying to find cures to diseases.
And so that's the main reason that we came here.
It's in collaboration with Bill and Melinda Gates.
They're doing their annual letter this year,
which we will link in the description below
and you can check it out,
but we want to learn a little bit about different diseases,
like polio for example
is basically non-existent compared to what it used to be.
David, some of your research is on polio,
you've done a lot of research.
Do you have some polio that you can show us.
- There it is right there.
- [Dan] Wait what, that little tiny dot thing?
- Yeah, that little dot right there on the end.
Do you see the light?
So there's some light going through there.
Okay, look through there and see what you can see.
See if you can see the polio in that.
- There's squares everywhere.
- [David] Yeah, those squares.
So, the polio viruses are in on those squares.
- [Lincoln] Little, tiny dots, so many of them.
- Wait but this is as far as you can zoom right here?
- Yes.
- Right now?
- That's right.
- So what do you even use if you need to see the virus?
- We use the electron microscope.
- Are you ready Lincoln?
- I think so.
- This is the electron microscope,
that we are not allowed to cut open.
- [Lincoln] That's the microscope?
- This is it.
- How is that,
I don't understand.
- [Dan] Look at that thing.
Ballpark, how much does one of these guys cost?
- A half a million dollars.
- [Dan] Half a million dollars for this microscope.
- Yeah we're not cutting that one open.
- It's getting real in here guys.
Polio virus to it's core.
This is about to happen.
(upbeat music)
- This is very, very, very, very cold.
Now we need to clamp it down.
- [Dan] Right, sample is going in everybody,
the sample is in.
- So this is like an air lock,
just like the astronauts when they go into space.
So you wanna drive, Lincoln, and I'll tell you how to drive.
(upbeat music)
- [Dan] Oh there you go, look at you, awesome.
- Each one of these is one virus.
So you've played with the track before, right?
So let's move around and see if we can find some others.
- Yeah, that's cool.
And we're looking at the actual virus
at how many times?
- [David] 40,000 times.
- 40,000 times.
- If you take a millimeter and divide it into
1,000,000 times, it will be 30 of those, isn't that amazing?
- So kids, if you think that you don't like science
or you don't think it's interesting, look at Lincoln,
we gave him a microscope, he's not stopping,
he is just like exploring this entire world.
It's like a video game, stay in school, learn about science.
Go to our Instagram, we'll just post this picture on there
and not having any explanation on Instagram
and comment that you know that that's polio.
So Bill and Melinda Gates, one of the numbers
that's super important to them is the number zero.
And what they mean by zero, is they are striving
for a world that has zero cases of malaria,
zero polio, zero TB, those little circles that you saw,
if we looked in there in 3D version,
this is what it would look like, that's polio.
- [Lincoln] Move it.
- [Dan] It looks like a planet that Klingons live on.
- [Lincoln] What's Klingon?
- You'll learn someday.
We've got our microscope, we're gonna take it home
and cut it open, thank you for your time.
- You're welcome, thanks for coming
- Appreciate all your work.
- Thanks for coming.
- We're back home now and I wanted to make sure
that this microscope works and I can show you guys it works.
I bought this little adapter,
this like classadapt adapter thingy.
This is what a fly looks like.
- So sick.
- It's like hairs and eyes, oh.
We've confirmed that was super gross.
All right, let's take apart this microscope
and see what is inside.
We got it all up on here, I turned it this way.
- Yeah, I think it'll work, this thing looks
pretty strong, but the saw can cut it.
(upbeat music)
- [Dan] We lost the top, it's shot in the battered.
It should be right in that hole, let's see.
- [Lincoln] Oh, there it is.
- [Dan] Ahaha, whohoo.
- I didn't touch that.
- [Dan] That was just for a lesson for the kids,
don't touch that, don't touch hot metal,
that's why you wear gloves.
Okay, they are joined together, ta da da.
- Ba ba ba bap, why?
- Gought a lot of thinking overnight.
- Wow.
- It's off.
- Yey.
- We still need to get into this, look.
There's lenses right there in it.
Just hanging on by a thread, all right, we got her.
- [Lincoln] What's all the lenses?
- [Dan] Got some glass in there, a mirror I should say,
that made the image, so it would come up and turn
and go up so you could see it up in there.
All right, that's the top part.
As I was cutting through with this other side,
I hit the bottom and it nudged the screws off of this guy,
success, here is what it looks like in the bottom,
it's cool, you can see all of the motors inside of it.
- There's the light.
- And you can see the light.
- Look down there, when this turns, it moved that.
- [Dan] That little light is the one that powers it all.
We just got into where the actual light goes through it,
right there at the blue thing, it's pretty heavy.
You can do it blade.
(upbeat music)
Microscope down.
(upbeat music)
Well, we finally got this guy out off the top.
Here's where we are at, we're so close.
How's it even holding on still?
I'm not quite sure what the answer is going to be,
other than brute force.
- Okay, smash it and I'll just back away.
Okay, yeah you succeeded on that one.
Cool, that is one thick lens.
- [Dan] Isn't it crazy thick?
See how thick that glass is, we even broke it
and it just chipped off part of it.
- You demolished it with that one, that was awesome.
- [Dan] That was a good hit,
let's give it another hit, like that.
- [Lincoln] All right, one, two, three.
Wow.
- [Dan] It has shot at me.
Ha-ha, you just gotta get it started with the saw
and then you finish it off with the sledgehammer.
- [Dan And Lincoln together] Boom.
- [Dan] Drop the mike.
- Part of it.
- [Dan] There's the handle where you would
twist it right there, get those gears.
Here is your lens
that makes the microscope function properly.
- And here is our work of art or a masterpiece.
- We have lots of masterpieces in our office and garage.
It's been a really cool experience the last two years
with the water filter video and now this microscope video,
to make a video collaboration with Bill and Melinda Gates.
So click on the link in the description below
and read Bill and Melinda Gates annual letter
and you can read about how life really has improved
for the world's poorest people and the truth is,
it's going to continue to improve for the world's poorest.
We learned so much today about viruses and how things
have really gotten a lot better over the years,
with polio, it's almost non-existent now.
So now you know what's inside the microscope.
- All of this, our masterpiece, right here.
- There it is.
- Thanks for watching guys.